


Geralt Is Soft(TM) for Once

by taylor_tut



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Fever, Gen, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, Protective Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Sick Character, Sickfic, sick jaskier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:47:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22550482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/pseuds/taylor_tut
Summary: Geralt has to calm Jaskier down when he begins hallucinating monsters in the forest from a high fever, and then he takes care of him. He worries. It's short and sweet.
Comments: 31
Kudos: 598





	1. Chapter 1

Geralt will hate himself for it later, but the first time that Jaskier complains of being cold, he’s annoyed. The day is actually the nicest that they’ve had in a long time, sunny enough that Geralt has taken off his armor in favor of wearing just a light tunic, and Jaskier has been slow enough since the previous evening that he’s already in a bad mood. 

“Perhaps you should walk faster,” Geralt bites at his complaint. “Work up a sweat.”

Jaskier shivers once, hard enough to see, and Geralt rolls his eyes at the theatrics. 

“I’m moving as fast as I can,” Jaskier replies somewhat meekly, another thing that should have been a red flag. “Perhaps I could—”

“Don’t touch Roach,” Geralt nips that thought in the bud. Jaskier puts his hands up in mock surrender. 

“Alright, fine,” he caves. “But don’t gripe at me when I collapse from trying to keep up your pace.”

“I won’t,” Geralt dismisses, not slowing down in the slightest. “I’ll just leave you there.”

Jaskier stumbles over his own feet, but he pushes ahead faster. 

Roach’s first break is a quiet affair. By this point, Geralt is sure that Jaskier is keeping things from him, but he doesn’t care to press. If he’s finally gotten him to stop whining about every inconvenience, he’s not about to try to undo whatever he’s done by asking about it. 

Still, usually Jaskier insists on lunch at this hour, rooting around their supplies for dried meat and berries and bread until he’s successfully fed both himself AND Geralt, despite that Geralt doesn’t think it’s necessary. 

“You don’t want lunch today?” Geralt can’t stop himself from asking, and Jaskier shakes his head, turning a little green, which highlights that he was looking pale before. 

“Not hungry,” he declines. “You should eat something, though.”

Geralt shrugs. “I don’t need it.” 

“You’re rubbish at knowing what you need,” Jaskier replies with a small smile, reaching into his own rucksack to pull out a small roll wrapped in a napkin. “Eat it.” 

Geralt catches the roll on instinct when it’s tossed to him, then breaks it in half, offering the second half to Jaskier, who puts up one hand to decline. 

He decides they’ll stop for dinner tonight, too, if Jaskier isn’t hungry presently, and he takes his cloak from where it’s folded up and buttoned onto Roach’s saddle bag, tossing it to Jaskier, because he’s still shivering. 

“You shouldn’t need that,” he feels the need to chastize, “not on a day like today.”

Jaskier snuggles into it, anyway. 

“Thank you,” he says, and Geralt hums in response. 

Until sundown, Jaskier doesn’t utter another word. He’s pulled the cloak tightly around himself, Geralt notices, as if he were trying to chase away a heavy winter chill, and after stumbling over his own feet one too many times, has taken to walking with one hand on Roach, lightly at first, but now he’s leaning quite heavily against her. 

Geralt doesn’t say a word about it. 

Jaskier tells him he’s got a headache, and Geralt tosses him the waterskin. An hour later, Jaskier repeats himself, and Geralt tells him to eat something. Fifteen minutes after that, Jaskier repeats himself again, but this time, it’s as if he doesn’t remember that he’s already said it. 

Geralt tells him, gentler this time, that they’ll stop soon, but they both know “soon” is relative, and Geralt’s definition is much different than Jaskier’s.

They’re close to stopping for the night, long after the sun has gone down, when Jaskier suddenly stops short, quiet and tense, until Geralt sighs and turns around to face whatever crisis he’s having, usually something like a hole in his shoe or a branch of brambles stuck to his sleeve. 

Whatever he’s expecting, it’s not what he sees, which is Jaskier staring into the forest, wide-eyed and completely still. Everything about his posture screams anxiety. 

Even with his Witcher senses, Geralt is not a wolf, and he cannot smell fear, but just with his limited ability to read human emotions, panic is clear on Jaskier’s face. 

“What is it?” Geralt demands. He follows the line of Jaskier’s shaking hand as he points into the dark forest. 

“Do you see it?” Jaskier whispers. Geralt looks, but has to shake his head. 

“See what?”

“Eyes,” Jaskier replies.  _ “Look.” _ Geralt IS looking, and he can’t for the life of him tell what Jaskier might be seeing. 

“Jaskier,” he says as patiently as he can, “there’s nothing there. It’s dark, your eyes are playing tricks.” 

Jaskier shakes his head desperately, and that seems to knock him off balance, sending him stumbling forward into Geralt’s arms. That’s when he notices the heat pouring off his small, shaking body. Jaskier doesn’t get his legs beneath him again and Geralt is left supporting him, albeit easily, given how light he is in Geralt’s grip. 

“You see it?” Jaskier demands again. It’s almost painful to hear so much fear in his voice. Jaskier has seen a lot of terror, following Geralt around, and while it’s not as if Geralt has ever thought him fearless, he’s never seemed quite so affected as he is now, from this imagined monster. It’s not surprising that whatever he can conjure in his waking nightmares is far worse than reality. 

“There’s nothing there, Jaskier,” Geralt repeats, concern bleeding into his tone. He presses his hand to Jaskier’s forehead and curses under his breath. It’s no low-grade fever and it’s no wonder Jaskier is out of his mind with it. “You’re burning,” he explains, keeping his voice low and calm. “You’re ill.”

“But the beast—”

“Isn’t real,” Geralt interjects. He’s never sounded so soft in his life. Jaskier doesn’t look convinced. “Do you trust me?” Without hesitation, Jaskier nods. “And you know that if there were something there, I wouldn’t let it hurt you, right?” Another nod. “Good.” Though he’s still got his eyes locked onto the hallucination in the woods, Jaskier allows himself, for understanding or for exhaustion, to be led away from the spot and toward a clearing, where Geralt forces him to sit on a tree stump. 

Geralt kneels in front of him, blocking his line of sight in the hopes of distracting him because to have Jaskier this worked up with his temperature as high as it is cannot be a good idea. 

“I need you to focus on me,” Geralt commands, and Jaskier tries, he really does. His eyes are glassy and struggling to remain open, rolling around dazedly when he moves his head or shifts his gaze. Geralt takes his chin in one palm to keep his head from turning back toward the forest. “Are you in pain?” 

Jaskier shrugs. “We’ve got go,” he insists. “The—the beast; the hunt.”

“I’m not concerned with that right now,” Geralt says, “and neither should you be.” Jaskier frowns, shakes his head, shivers. “Cold?” Jaskier nods, and Geralt curses again. “How can that fever still be climbing?” he mutters. 

Fuck. 

This is bad.

They’re miles from the nearest town, which is so small that Geralt would be surprised if they even had a doctor or mage. Even if he were willing to take that gamble, Jaskier is in no shape to travel that far, anyway. 

“We’re going to make camp here,” he decides, “and I’m going to take care of you.”

Jaskier frowns, suddenly a little lucid. “You don’t know how to do that.”

Figures: even in the wildest throws of his own imagination, Jaskier might be able to believe in a fantastic beast lurking in the wood to kill them, but the idea of Geralt gently tending his I'll companion all night is too ridiculous to accept.

“I know,” he admits. “But we’ve got no other options.” 

Geralt begins by lighting a fire, keeping a close eye on Jaskier as he lays out his bedroll a good distance from it, enough that he’ll not catch a chill on top of whatever else is wrong, but not close enough that it could raise his fever. “I know you’re cold,” he says, “but don’t move this any closer. Lie down.” 

Jaskier, either too weak to argue or too trusting and Geralt isn’t sure which would be worse, obeys, sighing in relief when Geralt drapes a thin blanket over his body. It’s astounding how borderline hedonistic Jaskier can project himself to be, but when he gets down to it, he barely asks for anything at all. Occasional baths, regular meals, nightly sleep. 

And Geralt is still failing to provide him with what he needs. 

“Where’re you going?” Jaskier slurs, trying and failing to track him with his eyes as he moves around. 

“Water,” Geralt replies. He’d assumed that they would just fill their waterskins again in a few hours when they reached a place to camp for the night, but since they’re stopping early, there is barely enough to hear it splashing around when Geralt shakes it, and Jaskier is doubtlessly dehydrated, probably dangerously so, already. Not wanting to waste his time fishing around in their supplies for bandages, Geralt bites hard on his sleeve and tears off a strip of fabric. He soaks it with what little water there is and folds it in half once before resting it on Jaskier’s forehead. While he knows that’s not going to do much for the fever, he can’t very well make tea with just that, and he’s not even sure that they’ve got any medicinal herbs at all. He plans to collect some while he’s out, so once Jaskier seems settled, he finds a muslin cloth that once contained nuts and berries but hasn’t had more than a few crumbs inside in over a week. 

What, he asks himself, has Jaskier even been eating? Geralt always makes breakfast, of course, but one meal a day is enough to meet his own physical needs; he’s a Witcher. 

Jaskier is human, and that fact is glaring him in the face, now. 

“You’ll be back, right?” Jaskier asks his retreating back. 

He doesn’t turn around. “Soon,” he promises. “Don’t move.”

Geralt disappears into the forest. 

He’s lucky that his vision is excellent even in low light. Finding and picking enough herbs to fill the bag (he plans to brew them into a tea, and it needs to be strong) takes less than half an hour, and as soon as he’s filled both the cloth bag with herbs and both their waterskins with cool water from the stream, he’s hurrying back to their campsite. 

When he returns, his normally slow and even heart rate accelerates so sharply that he tastes copper because Jaskier is not where he left him. 

He takes a deep breath to slow his thoughts—there's no way Jaskier got far in this condition. 

What if he were kidnapped? There's no sign of a struggle, but how much of a struggle would a man as ill as Jaskier really put up?

What if he were attacked? He saw no tracks and smelled nothing unusual, but that didn't necessarily mean that nothing had happened. 

What if—

"Jaskier," Geralt sighs after what feels like forever but is probably only a moment of panic. He spots him, leaning up against a tree a few feet away from the fire, far enough behind it that he'd been hidden until he'd started to sway. Geralt tries to control his anger as he stomps up to him and catches him by the elbow. Jaskier's eyes are far too bright and his cheeks are flushed a deep pink. The anger slowly melts away: there's no way Jaskier has any idea what he's doing right now, and with no more rage to stand in the way, Geralt can feel the relief of finding him unharmed. 

"What did I say about staying put?" he demands lightly, guiding a very malleable Jaskier back to his bedroll. Jaskier frowns. 

"You were gone," he defends, as if that explains anything at all. 

"Yes," Geralt agrees, "and I told you I was coming back." 

"I didn't know where you'd gone," Jaskier says. "I was worried." 

Great, now he feels guilty for leaving him. 

"Don't worry," Geralt dismisses as he sits Jaskier back down and wraps the blanket around him once more. "I won't leave again. Not until you can think clearly, at least." 

He wants to find the whole thing childish, the idea that he can't leave Jaskier alone for even a second before his codependent ride-along is up and searching for him. It's predictable, isn't it, after all, that Jaskier would follow him like a duckling who's imprinted on a hunting dog, blissfully unaware of the teeth and the claws and the instinct to kill simply because he himself can't even fathom anything but feathers and floating. 

He's had a lot of bounties on his head but that’s not why Jaskier had been trying to find him. 

Jaskier wasn't scared of the forest. He'd been scared that Geralt was off alone in it. 

And Geralt is terrified that he'd come looking. 

"You won't leave," Jaskier verifies before he lets his eyes close. Geralt takes the hot hand that's sticking out of the blankets and gives it a squeeze. 

"No," he promises. "Don't sleep yet." 

Jaskier watches, or at least appears to watch Geralt set up a pot of water above the fire and throw the flowers and berries he'd gathered into it to begin brewing. They swirl around as the bubbles push them in a whirlpool, never straying from their predictable, gentle circles caused by the rapid boiling. 

The tea is strong and he knows it will be bitter, and Jaskier isn't coherent enough to be urged to drink anything that tastes foul, so Geralt adds a generous dollop from a jar of honey he'd been gifted from their last best hunt and had planned on trading for something more useful. 

He has to help Jaskier sit up against a tree stump and he gets the general impression that he’s got no idea, despite watching Geralt make it, what’s just been pressed into his hands. However, it’s warm and he’s still shivering, so he begins to lift it to his lips, and Geralt has to stop him. 

“Blow on it,” he warns. “You’ll burn your mouth.” Jaskier does so weakly, but Geralt ends up taking the cup from him and blowing on it himself. When he deems it cool enough for Jaskier to drink, he passes it back, helps him raise it to his lips. Jaskier seems to choke on it a bit, coughing after swallowing only a few mouthfuls of liquid. Geralt steadies the cup while Jaskier catches his breath and brings it back to his lips when he pushes it away.

“You have to drink all of it,” he says. “It’ll bring down your fever.”

Jaskier shakes his head, and Geralt rolls his eyes. 

“Fine,” he begins, “I suppose you’d rather have a dip in the river. The water is cold this time of year. It will bring your temperature down all the same, but I thought the tea might be more pleasant.” 

Jaskier glares, but takes the cup back and drains it in one motion. “Arse,” he accuses, and Geralt knows that there’s no way it’s made a difference yet, but all the same, he presses his palm against Jaskier’s forehead just to make himself worry more. 

“You can sleep now,” he offers, “if you’re tired.”

Jaskier casts his terrified gaze once more to the forest with renewed energy. His breathing begins to pick up again, but Geralt is there now to stop it. 

“I will keep watch,” he promises. “Nothing will harm you.”

“But what about you?” Jaskier asks. “If I fall asleep, who will watch out for you?”

Geralt huffs a sigh. “I will look out for myself,” he replies, but of course, that’s not good enough for Jaskier. “The only thing I’m worried about is you. Fuck forest beasts. The best thing you can do for me is recover.” 

Jaskier takes the mission seriously, and he squeezes Geralt’s hand hard, like he’s trying to prove something. 

“Just a short rest,” he resolves. “To help the tea… to let your tea work.” 

Geralt nods. “As long as you need.” 

Jaskier closes his eyes, looking peaceful for the first time in a while, and Geralt rewets and replaces the strip of fabric on his forehead, smoothing his hair after he’s placed it. Jaskier is asleep, after all, and will likely not remember any of this once the fever breaks even if he is still somewhat conscious. 

Geralt decides that night that he refuses to be the biggest threat to Jaskier’s safety any longer, and if Jaskier will not have the good sense to leave, which he knows he won’t do, then Geralt will just have to do a better job of keeping him alive. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Surprise!! Because a soft fic deserves a soft ending, here's a chapter two.

When Jaskier wakes the next morning, it’s to a pounding headache and a dry throat. He pulls a face at the sour taste in his mouth and scowls—how long had he slept for? The sun is high in the sky, so it’s curious that Geralt wouldn’t have them on the road by now. 

Speaking of Geralt, he’s sleeping propped up against a tree stump, and Jaskier’s heart skips a beat when he fully takes in the scene in front of him. A bag of medicinal herbs sits beside him, and there’s a rag in his hands; it appears as though he fell asleep midway through wringing it out with water. 

He realizes he’s got no recollection of the previous night and that combined with is other symptoms leads him to one possible conclusion: he’d gotten drunk and Geralt had been injured protecting him from a fight, and Jaskier had been so far blacked out that he’d gone to sleep, leaving Geralt to tend his own wounds. 

Ignoring the rush of dizziness that assaults him when he sits up—he deserves it, anyway—, he scoots over to Geralt and taps his cheek, his heart pounding in his chest so strongly it’s making him feel breathless. And nauseous. And a bit like he’s spinning. 

Damn it, how much had he drank last night?

“Geralt,” he calls softly, and immediately, golden eyes fly open to meet his own. 

“Jaskier,” he breathes sounding, of all things, relieved. “How do you feel?”

Jaskier shakes his head. “Pants,” he admits, “but nothing I don’t deserve for my debauchery. How badly are you hurt?”

Surprisingly, Geralt blinks in confusion. “Hurt?”

Jaskier nods, gestures to the herbs and the rag. “I shouldn’t have drunk so much,” he apologizes, “and I’m sorry; I wasn’t there for you—”

“What are you talking about?” Geralt asks. “You weren’t drunk. You were ill.” Geralt presses a cool palm to his forehead suddenly, as if he’s only just now remembered because of the distraction of confusion, and sighs. “Not quite broken,” he mutters, “but better.” 

Jaskier sits back. Now that guilt isn’t clouding his senses, he’s able to notice that his muscles ache to the bone, and the headache isn’t quite the same kind of pain as he tends to get when he’s had too much ale, but a sort of throbbing, dull ache at the base of his skull. His clothes are damp with sweat, likely from his temperature beginning to break, and the dry throat he’d chalked up to the burn of alcohol is actually quite swollen and tender. 

He’d been ill. 

“Why can’t I remember last night?” he asks. A darkness crosses Geralt’s face, making him look haunted in a way he’d only ever seen him when he’d asked about Blaviken. 

“Your fever got so high,” he says. “I didn’t notice until you were raving.”

“Raving?” 

He nods. “Seeing things,” he explains, “that weren’t there. Forgetting things moments after they happened. You were in a bad way.” 

Jaskier takes that in, and though he knows he has a right to feel a bit sorry for himself, he finds his focus elsewhere. 

“You tended to me?” 

Geralt laughs once, and it’s humorless. “I had no idea what I was doing. I was beginning to think you wouldn’t survive the night.” 

Jaskier shrugs. “Well, you did something right,” he points out. “I’m still here.”

Geralt rolls his eyes instead of accepting the gratitude. “You’re still far from recovered,” Geralt says. “A doctor should look at you.”

Jaskier is beginning to feel exhausted just from this conversation, and the gravity of how ill he must have been sets in a little bit. 

“I don’t think I’m up for much travel today,” he admits. Geralt nods. 

“Tomorrow, then,” he agrees—since when is he agreeable? “But if your fever spikes again, you’ll go today.”

Jaskier nods. “Okay.” 

“If you feel worse, you tell me,” he commands. 

Jaskier cracks a tired grin. “You’re giving me permission to complain?”

Geralt, while he must know it’s a jest, nods sincerely, and Jaskier reaches out to squeeze his hand. 

“You should get some sleep, too,” he says. Before Geralt can object, he cuts him off. “I’ll be fine. Really, I’m feeling much better now.”

Geralt eyes him suspiciously, but Jaskier can see that he’s exhausted. 

“I promise I’ll wake you if I feel unwell again.” 

That seems to be enough to convince Geralt, albeit reluctantly, to give in. He’d put both their bedrolls together the night before to give Jaskier more room—likely, he’d been thrashing, which is something he tended to do when he ran fevers—, and he doesn’t move it away when he lies down. Jaskier isn’t about to push him away. He can’t say “goodnight,” because it’s midmorning and he can’t say “thank you,” because Geralt will hate it. While he’s trying to get his sluggish brain to think of something appropriate, Geralt, for once, beats him to it. 

“Rest, bard,” he instructs softly, “and heal.” Jaskier nods and closes his eyes. 


End file.
